Chapter Eleven
“ARE YOU Elliot?”
The blonde-haired teenager looking down at him seemed familiar and, after a few seconds, Elliot recognised her as the girl who’d had a massive row with her boyfriend in the canteen the previous week. “Yes,” he said.
It was the Monday after the party and he had just finished the one English class that he shared with Farlden, the two of them about to go and collect Barve from the other campus. They would then join Callie in the canteen where she would hopefully be herself again, having vanished while he and Farlden were doing magic at the party and thrown up. She had dismissed it, saying that she had mixed her drinks, but Elliot had been concerned about her.
The blonde girl sat down on a padded seat beside them in the large, empty room and looked from him to Farlden. “I’m sorry, I don’t know how to pronounce your name, but you’re the Nean who can do magic with Elliot, aren’t you? The two of you can read minds?”
That bit of information certainly hadn’t taken long to get around.
“Yeah,” Farlden said and told her his name.
“I need the two of you to help me,” she said. “There’s something wrong with my boyfriend. Ever since we came back to Uni this year, he’s been acting like a different person. I don’t know if it’s drugs or something else, but I’m worried about him and I don’t know how long I can stay involved with him when he’s acting crazy.”
“Crazy in what way?” Elliot asked, curious. The girl was lovely in a slightly doll-like way, with long blonde hair, round eyes and full lips. Her clothes were of the latest fashion and her finger nails were manicured and varnished with the same shade of red as her lipstick.
“He forgets things that he couldn’t possibly forget, like where we went on our first date or the song we’ve always danced to together and he says things that are just out-of-character.”
“Perhaps his friends could tell you...”
She cut across him again, tone sharp. “...If his friends could tell me what was wrong, do you think I’d be asking two total strangers for help?” She pulled a face, as if realising she had sounded rude. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I love him and I’m really worried.”
“I’m not sure what we can do. Our magic is sometimes pretty vague.”
“Just try. Please.”
Elliot looked at Farlden to see what he thought of the strange request, but he just shrugged, as helpful as ever.
“All right,” he said. “What’s your boyfriend’s name? Oh, and your name too?”
“I’m Eva Berden and he’s Nolan Summers. Here...” She put her handbag onto her lap and got out her purse, taking out a photo inside it, which she gave to him. “This is Nolan.”
He had seen the boy during the argument with Eva. Nolan was good-looking – with black hair and dark eyes that complimented her fair looks – and well-built, with the strong body of someone who played sports regularly. Like Eva, he was doubtless the popular type. Perhaps he just wanted to break up with her and didn’t know how. There was probably nothing for them to find out.
He glanced at Farlden again, who was frowning, and said, “We’ll need to talk this over to know if there’s anything we can do.”
“I’ll give you my mobile number.” She got out a notepad and pen, not sounding as if she was willing to take no for an answer.
* * *
“Could Elliot Rivers report to the Vice Chancellor’s office.”
Elliot heard the announcement over the tannoy as he was sitting in his second History of the English Language lecture next to Callie the morning after meeting Eva. His heartbeat sped up and his stomach lurched as he wondered what he could possibly have done wrong. He had never been in trouble with the Principal during his entire time at school.
Callie muttered, “What’s going on?”
“I’ve no idea.”
The kids who knew who he was turned to stare at him and he heard the muttered word, “... Expelled.”
No, that was impossible. He couldn’t have done something that terrible without even being aware of it.
Miles Sandham, the professor, looked round at the sea of faces from where he stood on the stage in front of them. “Is one of you Elliot Rivers?”
Elliot got up, feeling heat rise to his face. “Yes.”
The man gave him a searching look. “You’d better get going then and not keep the Vice Chancellor waiting.”
Elliot glanced at Callie’s concerned face and then grabbed his bag. He stumbled over feet and bags as he tried to get out of the row of seats and could feel the eyes of everyone in the room on him. He hadn’t felt as sick as this when he woke up with a hangover on Saturday morning.
He had no idea where the Vice Chancellor’s office was and jogged through long corridors to the admin office to ask, directed to a room close by a middle-aged woman in a trouser suit.
He had to take several breaths before he worked up the nerve to knock on the door, hands clammy. A male voice inside told him to enter, so he did.
He hovered in the doorway. “I’m Elliot Rivers, sir.”
“Ah, good.” The Vice Chancellor smiled at him, which hopefully meant he couldn’t be in too much trouble. “Have a seat, Elliot.”
He fell into a chair the other side of the desk to the man, who was younger than he might have expected, with short, bright ginger hair and piercing eyes. Elliot belatedly recalled that this was the man who had spoken to them all on their first day of studies.
The Vice Chancellor closed his laptop and put his hands on the desk, fingers steepled together, as he faced Elliot. “I just wanted to have a chat with you about something I found out today. You and one of the two Nean boys here have magic that you used together in one of the residential halls.”
So that was it. He tried to imagine which student at the party could have possibly made a complaint – none of them had looked concerned and he didn’t think most had been sober enough to even remember what he and Farlden had done. “We didn’t intend any harm, sir.”
“No, of course not. You’re not in any trouble.”
Elliot nearly gasped out loud in relief, his limbs going weak.
The Vice Chancellor continued, “It’s rare for two people with magic to be in the same place at once and, of course, magic can be dangerous.”
Could it? That was news to him. “I don’t believe our magic could possibly harm anyone. We certainly would never want to.”
“That’s reassuring to know. May I ask about you and the Nean’s magical abilities?”
“I can see glimpses from people’s memories and Farlden can focus on specific time periods.” He thought that was what Farlden did anyway; that was how it had felt. Even through the haze of alcohol, the few minutes of shared magic on Friday night stood out in his mind, bright and shining. Some hint of lingering fear made him want the Vice Chancellor to think their combined ability was less strong than it was. “We just see a hint of vague memory, nothing more.”
“And the Nean has nothing stronger than you?”
“I don’t think so.” Elliot didn’t have a clue. “Perhaps you should ask him.”
“That’s not necessary. I’m sure I can trust an intelligent, responsible boy like you to keep control of the Neans so that the issue doesn’t get out of hand.”
He bristled at hearing Barve and Farlden referred to as if they were his pets instead of human beings with rights. The realisation only gradually crawled through him that Neans didn’t have basic rights – he had never understood what that meant until now. Would they ever actually have full control over their own lives?
“There won’t be any trouble,” he said, keeping his expression in check so he wouldn’t reveal his sudden dislike of the man opposite him.
“Excellent. I knew I could rely on any child of Nicola Rivers.”
Those words explained everything about his attitude.
Dismissed, Elliot got up and walked mechanically out of the office. He didn’t have it in his nature to skip the rest of his History of the English Language lecture, but the moment it ended he left Callie, promising to explain things later, and went in search of Farlden. When he finally found him, he said, “I have to talk to you and Barve.”
Farlden took in his expression and nodded, not wasting time with questions and, for once, Elliot was glad of his surly nature.
They drove to the smaller campus and he hurried Barve outside. When they were alone, huddled round on a damp wooden bench, he told them about his meeting with the Vice Chancellor.
Farlden said, “Tell us exactly what you said about the magic. Repeat your exact words and his.”
Elliot did so and watched some of the tension bleed from Farlden’s body.
“I never thought anyone would take such an interest in our magic,” Elliot said. “Is this what you were afraid would happen? Is this why you were worried about us doing magic together?”
“It could get a million times worse than a mild talk from the Vice Chancellor,” Farlden said, a hard look in his eyes. “I’d kill myself before I let some bastards dissect me to try and understand my magic.”
Barve pulled his legs up onto the bench and put his arms round them.
Elliot was about to say that no one could get away with torturing someone, when he remembered again that Neans didn’t have the same rights as Sapiens. For the first time he began to understand why Farlden was so confrontational. Elliot had thought that he wanted nothing more than to keep sharing magic with Farlden, but the idea that this might put the teenagers in danger killed the desire. “I don’t ever want to see either of you harmed. Perhaps we shouldn’t do magic together again.”
He expected Farlden to wholeheartedly support this view since he was the one who had always been wary about it, but he was as contrary as ever. “Maybe we should. If the Saps – the other Sapiens – see our combined magic as something unremarkable and harmless, it might be better than having them wonder if we’re keeping something powerful a secret. The known is a lot less scary than the unknown.”
“We don’t know how much we can do,” Elliot said. “We’ve just started using magic together and I have a feeling that it could get a lot stronger as we figure out how to make it work fully.”
Farlden leaned towards him. “If it does get stronger, no one else can know. Not family, friends, anyone.”
“I agree.” He looked at the two boys – who had done nothing wrong and shouldn’t have to constantly defend themselves from danger – and knew he would do anything possible to protect them.